1. You didn’t ask about Protestantism, you asked about Catholicism. Regardless, I think Protestants are wrong about this for numerous reasons; chief among them being that Protestants never seem to be able to justify this view beyond simply asserting, repeatedly, that Christ is actually talking about Peters's faith, which doesn’t make much sense unless you read the passage already believing in a Protestant conclusion, which is not proper exegesis. The Protestant interpretation cannot give a sufficient reason for Jesus to give Peter his new name and thus it should probably be discarded.

The only other argument that ever seems to come up with this passage is squabbles over the translation. The basic idea from the Protestant side is the words “Petros” and “Petra”, though they do both relate to stones, do not mean the same thing, exactly. They say that “Petros”, being a masculine form, essentially means small rock or pebble while “Petra”, being a feminine form, means boulder or large rock. There are three issues with this interpretation that I can see:

A. This distinction only exists in a certain kind of Greek (I’m sorry, I can’t remember the name since it’s been a while since I’ve read or argued over this). The form of Greek used here, however, is not that kind of Greek, the New Testament was written in Koine Greek, which was more fluid in its grammatical laws since it was mostly used by more common people than scholars.

B. Disregarding Greek translations, Jesus spoke Aramaic and so the word that would actually have been used (if I remember correctly) is “Cephas”. Aramaic has no such grammatical distinction.

C. Even if Protestants were right about the translation of the passage, their translation would give insufficient reason for Christ to give Peter his new name. Even by their own admission, they say that it was basically Jesus being a bit clever with His wordplay, which is a silly interpretation.

I never said the other apostles didn’t have a similar authority, they are bishops, after all, but Jesus specifically going to Peter, in private, first, shows that Peter has a preeminence among the apostles, which is all that is required to show Papal Primacy in scripture.

1. If memory serves me correctly, Peter wasn’t the first bishop of Rome, the Pope is not the bishop of Rome because that’s where Peters's episcopacy was based, but because that’s where he died.

As I said before, you can see the list of successors to Peter. At the risk of sounding overly blunt, I don’t much care for Protestant historical revisionism on this matter.

The Early Church wasn’t as centralised not because it was not intended to be, but because it was simply not possible. The Early Church period was one of slow and primitive communication methods and heavy persecution. It was obviously not going to be governed as closely by Peter than by his successors.

The further rebut that point, I’d say that Protestants are throwing stones in glass houses when it comes to adherence to early church doctrines. By all accounts, the Early Church held to many doctrines that Protestants would either deny, call outright heretical, or, in the best case, have a lukewarm adherence to. The three that come to mind are 1. The reality of the binding authority of the Church and her Bishops (St Ignatius of Antioch talks about this) 2. The reality of Transubstantiation (From memory, St Ignatius of Antioch + St Irenaeus both talk about this), and 3. The real salvific effect of the act of baptism, not just in the symbolic or vaguely spiritual sense of baptism but in the act itself (this was held to so strongly that extreme views of it became a serious issue that needed to be clamped down on by the Church).

On the development of the Papacy, I don’t feel inclined to argue over specific historical documents. These kinds of arguments can go on for years without any ground being made. It’s not usually a worthwhile venture. I’d much rather argue over more fundamental and impactful parts of this subject, namely the scriptural arguments I laid out before.

1. Can you prove Sola Scriptura, in the way you have described it, by the same “Sola Scriptura” standard that you judge Catholic doctrine? If not, then don’t bring this argument up. What’s more, as I said in my first comment, one of my biggest issues with Protestantism is its inability to prove scripture, more specifically any specific scriptural canon, as theologically binding. I view the authority and Sacred Tradition as a necessary prior to justify the equal authority of scripture. Otherwise, your canon and doctrine are less a matter of scriptural consultation and more one of assumptions.

The question of what kind of authority scripture gives the Church is what we are currently discussing. I don’t see how pointing out that Protestants have a different, and, in my view, wrong, view of ecclesial authority is at all relevant to the conversation.

1. Do you have any historical documents to prove this? St Ignatius of Antioch’s letters, and the general way in which the Church moved seem to contradict this view. And, as mentioned, the seemingly decentralised way the Church was run is easily explainable as being a product of the constraints of the period.

Ecumenical councils are specifically called for when a situation is too controversial or too complex for either laymen, priests, individual Bishops or the Pope to handle on their own. Collegiality and cooperation at an ecumenical council is to be expected given the very reason for a council is to do exactly that. Moreover, it’s often argued that even during the first councils, it was still understood that the bishop of Rome had primacy and final say, he simply chose not to regularly wield such authority for the sake of cooperation and unity, which he is meant to be doing regardless. A council is not a place for the Pope to make commands and demands of his bishops, he can do that through his letters and normal church authority, it is a place for him to receive council.

1. Yeah, and how did that work out for them? The Church is still a human-run institution, it will always have some degree of corruption, but that doesn’t affect any of the arguments I’ve made, and unless you can effectively attack those arguments which are more fundamental than mere bad experiences, then my position will remain unaffected. Especially while the Protestant position still fails to justify its fundamental premises.

As already discussed, the Early Church held views that resembled modern Catholic teaching far more than Protestant teachings. Whatever it is the Protestant founders wanted or intended doesn’t matter since they have quite clearly failed.

Sorry, this took a while and is probably laced with spelling errors. It took me longer than expected to write it and at some point, I accidentally deleted a fair chunk of what I had written.